DA 20-40mm Ltd - anyone had a go yet?

It's probably the right starting price for the type of lens and the superior manufacturing quality. It will fall with time.

As a lens it clearly has its own character, not perfect lab results, but capable of outstanding performance when stopped down. How this makes it perform when wide open remains to be seen.

With all lenses, they can have practical uses that make a lab test superfluous in many ways. Hence the imperfect but very nice 18-135mm WR.

I can't afford £850 for this, so it makes it academic at the moment.

It's had strangely mixed reviews. Really one to try for oneself. I find the negative that it is an odd zoom range not really very wide, nor very telephoto a puzzling conclusion. Surely the point is how it fits in with other lenses and what the inetntion of the user is. Personally I think it is a cleverly conceived zoom range ideal for many uses and will partner very well with certain other lenses. I don't think I've ever read a review of a prime lens that says it is the wrong focal length. If it were wider and longer then it would be the 16-50 for example, which we already have, it would certainly be bigger and hence negate one of its key features.

Sharpness IS very important to me. However, there are provisos:

Sharpness at the edge of the frame shooting at below f4 doesn't matter. 99% of the time, my subject will be somewhere in the middle and relatively close to the camera, and the edges/background will be more distant and therefore out of focus anyway. Only central sharpness matters here, and the DA20-40mm seems to have this in spades. Looking at Gary's review and lens tests, central image sharpness is comfortably in the 'excellent' range at all focal lengths and normal apertures, and actually goes off the chart a few time.

All over sharpness is something I only want in scenic shots really, where everything is distant or 'at infinity'. In this scenario, I will stop down to achieve depth of field, and again, the DA20-40mm does well here, at f5.6 to f11 achieving 'excellent' marks across the frame at all focal lengths.

I think mille19's assertion that 'If the 20-40mm keeps getting bad reviews I think the cost will have to drop if Ricoh want to sell them in any quantities' is not very helpful at all. What 'bad reviews'?. Gary Wolstenholme's review found very little to criticise other than reduced sharpness at the frame edges at wide apertures. Plenty of lenses at all price points suffer that. Opinions on matters like zoom range and even price are very much subjective. Other aspects of the lens' performance were favourably reported in Gary's review, as they have been generally in other reviews. This is a lens which will probably never sell in large numbers, and Ricoh will have been well aware of that, but it does very adequately meet a niche market. It's not everyones cup of tea but it is a lens very worthy of its Ltd title.

Very balanced and insightful views from John Riley, DrOrloff and Pentaxophile above contribute far more positively to its assessment.

Best regards

Jim

I think the material posted so far shows it is decent

Average rating from users on US forum is above 9 from 8 or so reviews so far

http://www.pentaxforums.com/lensreviews/hd-pentax-da-20-40mm-f2.8-4-limited-dc-w...

Many people describe the FA 43mm as a great lens, but not because of lab scores (as john is getting at)

I don't see how the 20-40mm can be compared to say the FA 31m... both have their merits

Maybe it can be compared to a Sigma zoom such as 18-35, which are good... but if you want small size/WR/Pentax colours

The sigma 18-35mm does look good, but I can't get past its size and WR is a real bonus [if not essential at this range for me]

The 20-40mm is definitely something I could see myself getting eventually..

I'm sure it's a very good lens, but it should be at that price.
I just think it looks over-priced, from what I've seen so far I don't think it warrants the price-tag, IMHO.

The 20-40 has taken quite a lot of flak regarding its price. In my hands-on preview earlier in this thread I clarified why I think it's cost is justified but it might be worth considering this just a little further.

Comments seem to be either 'it's too expensive for what it is' or 'it's too expensive for what I can afford (even though I'm interested)'. Well, we all have limits to what we can afford, sometimes much influenced by the opinion of her/him indoors , but too expensive for what it is? I find this critisism a little irrelevant when made by folk who have not used or even handled the lens but it warrants attention when a journalist as respected as Gary Wolstenholme makes it. Gary's main concerns regarding value seem to be the 20-40's variable aperture and limited zoom range, both of which he compares unfavourably with the DA*16-50 (at a similar price point).

Having owned both lenses I would say they are chalk and cheese. The 16-50 f2.8 is fairly large and heavy for a mid-range zoom (by APS-C standards) and made primarily of good quality plastics. The 20-40 f2.8-f4 is considerably smaller, lighter (half the weight) and and made of aluminium. Subjectively, the 16-50 feels like a nice lens whilst the 20-40 feels like precision engineering. Hopefully the DC drive of the 20-40 will have a better reliability record than the SDM of the 16-50 (tell me about it). However, I certainly agree that IF in the 20-40 would have been very welcome.

If zoom range was a factor in determining price then the 18-270 would be extremely expensive but of course it's not. Pentax have a whole bunch of zooms covering the range of the 20-40, all with their strengths and weaknesses. The 20-40 is the best constructed by a country mile but it won't appeal to those who are happy to carry extra bulk for a wider zoom range. It's horses for courses.

A few have commented that the price of the 20-40 is bound to drop. Well, perhaps a little (I already paid £85 less than the current street price thanks to an SRS special offer) but, whereas DSLR prices are guaranteed to drop over time, that is not necessarily true of lenses. For example, I paid £650 for my DA*50-135 just under three years ago and that lens now has a street price tag of £1,000!

I could rattle on about what great value we Pentaxians have in lens prices compared to our Cankon cousins but really it's immaterial. The 20-40 is a niche lens much appreciated by some as a very worthy addition to the Pentax range but others will have zero interest in it. It's nice to have the choice.

Best regards

Jim

I have little knowledge of optics and lens structure, but I would have thought that to design and construct a precision motor-driven focus zoom lens is technically more demanding and complex than it is for a screw-driven focus prime lens. I would be interested to know if that is correct and, if it is, should the current price of the 20-40 HD Ltd then be considered reasonable by comparison with the HD Ltd primes?

Philip

Jim and Philip both make very good points.

Ultimately it all depends on what our photography consists of. I have lenses I need but rarely use. I have lenses I almost always use when out and about. For personal photography that isn't planned the MX-1 fits the bill nicely.

The 20-40mm would be lovely to have as I enjoy good engineering and who knows, maybe one day I'll see one at an irresistible price.

I would guess there is a good chance that the price of the 20-40 might drop by around £100 in the coming months but I'd be surprised if it dropped much more unless it fails to sell in the quantities that Ricoh anticipate, and surely they would have been realistic in forecasting sales of a niche lens. Conversely, if it sells better than anticipated we could even see a price rise. However, I suspect some owners might decide that perhaps the 2x zoom range is too limiting for them, particularly if they have come from longer zooms rather than from Ltd primes. That could lead to a trickle of 'low-mileage' 20-40s on the used market. Nice time to grab a bargain.

The only issue I have with the 20-40's price is that, having bought that and a K-3 within three months, there is very little left in the piggy bank for the predicted (and coveted) DA 135-380. I can see I'm going to have to grovel to Her Who Must Be Obeyed

Best regards

Jim

Exactly right.

I've received the lens, and took it for a few snaps in the Lake district a few days ago.

Have posted the photos here

I'm no good at actually analysing things, but the feeling is, it does seem to give me what I miss when I'm carrying the 31mm, though a lot of the time I do find myself going back to around 30mm ish focal lengths. Certainly not the same breed, think the 31mm renders images in a very different way, but it is a very pleasurable lens to use (at least for myself!!)

Thanks for posting Adrian. Good to know you are enjoying the 20-40. You did well to get decent shots in what was clearly very high wind.

I've sent you a pm.

Best regards

Jim

This lens has taken a fair amount of flak on this forum and elsewhere, much of it from those who have not even handled it let alone own it. Also plenty of grumbles about price as though purchase is obligatory rather than a personal choice . Nevertheless, nearly three-and-a-half thousand views of this thread indicate that the 20-40 draws a lot of interest.

After two months of ownership and use here are a few observations for the interested. Firstly, I went through the AF fine-tuning excercise on the K-3 and found that it needed a little adjustment. The degree of correction varied very slightly with focal length (20mm, 30mm 40mm) but I settled on +3.

The sample images provided in Gary Wolstenholme's review indicated that his copy of the 20-40 was conspicuously softer on the right side of the frame than across the rest of the frame (as also noticed by Algernon). Another reviewer said he sent back his first lens due to one-sided softness, to be replaced by a 20-40 with better overall sharpness. Perhaps these are isolated cases but this raises concerns about QC issues - which should not be expected of a relatively costly LTD-series lens.

However, my tests of my 20-40 showed it not to suffer that issue and the OP also has no such issues with his lens. What I found is that wide open my lens is fairly sharp across-frame but with a perceptible softening at the edges and corners, particularly at 40mm. This is quite noticeable when viewed at 100% but is not really evident when images are viewed at A3 size (viewing distances come into play beyond A3). As I don't suffer pixel-peeping-syndrome I'm not concerned by this BUT I would have expected better overall sharpness from a lens bearing the LTD badge. I should say that in real world images this is barely an issue.

My test shots showed barrel distortion at 20mm focal length to be slightly stronger than that of the 21mm LTD prime lens but the distortion is handled easily and fully by the in-camera Distortion Correction feature and/or in Lightroom 5.3.

Sharing the concern of some reviewers that the small-but-perfectly-formed lens hood might not be adequate in some lighting conditions I purchased a circular screw-in aluminium hood with a little more depth. It increases vignetting very slightly but that is easily addressed in PP. The Pentax hood is fitted most the time but with the accessory hood in my pocket when needed.

All that aside, the 20-40 just feels sooo right on the K-3 and it oozes quality. It has become my go-to walkabout lens accompanied just by the 15mm and 70mm LTDs - one in each pocket. Other lenses in my bag have their uses, particularly the wonderful DA* 50-135, but most times the 15mm, 20-40mm and 70mm are enough for me.

Best regards

Jim

Thanks for the feedback Jim. I was quite interested in this lens when it came out and using it in a kit with the 15mm and 70mm or even the 100mm macro is exactly how I envisaged it. I sort of see the 20-40 as "a zoom lens for prime shooters". As it happens though I bought a GR, so probably won't get this lens for the foreseeable future, but it's still good to hear how it performs in real life.